the committee for economic development. from bogra airfield in afghan army and its ability to secure the country. bidene president joe plans to address u.s. concerns about china's recent concerns over airspace. the white house announces that a part of healthcare.gov will be turned over to hewlett-packard. they also announced that part of the website that would allow small businesses to purchase insurance will be delayed by a year. after gathering around table today with family and friends, does the conversation turned to politics? maybe you enjoy the process. maybe you do not. we want to get your thoughts on if thanksgiving is a time to

talk politics. here is how you can weigh in. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. independents, (202) 585-3882. you can take a poll on our facebook page and give your responses as well. facebook.com/cspan. .ou can also send us e-mail that is journal@c-span.org. dnc started a website called your republican uncle -- yourre publicanuncle.com. responses.uggested myths, obama is a government

takeover of the health care system. let's be honest, the affordable care act was born out of ideas originally proposed by republicans. it breaks it up into various categories, if you go into the twitter page, it gives facts you can discuss and agree with, such as fact six, you can agree over things giving dinner -- healthcare.gov is still broken. agree on -- you can iety ofre var responses to various political issues. maybe like to talk about politics, maybe you do not. give your thoughts. not only a few talk politics during the holiday, but also how that goes as far as the family

and friends that you associate with. you can give us your thoughts on the phone this morning. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. and independents, (202) 585- 3882. if you want to give us your thoughts on thanksgiving and if it is a time to talk politics, you can do so on our twitter page, @cspanwj. page, go to our facebook there's a poll you can participate in. about 30 people waiting in so far. 22 responding no so far. 11 saying yes. you can leave comments on the comment section as well. val, fromcall is to

minneapolis, minnesota. what to think about thanksgiving being a time to talk politics? good morning, pedro, how are you doing? anytime is a good time to talk politics. this would be a good topic for one of your call in shows where you invite guests who can talk to us about it. , based oni wonder if the relationships that i have had all -- had with people, sometimes people think there are times you talk about politics and times you do not. politics should be something talk about all of the time. sometimes some of us are not as educated as we could be about politics. the only time you do not talk about politics is when people are getting upset and getting riled and angry. can you have conversations

at thanksgiving or other times without anger or heated words? --caller: if you throw something out that this is going to be an easy going type of conversation that we are going to have a the table, let's out of shape.bent let's casually put our opinions out there and if it gets too hot, let's move onto another topic. amy sometimes people think when it comes to politics you have to be yelling and shouting and nasty. we appreciate the comments. randy, connecticut, joining us on our republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. christopher columbus did not discover america. he uncovered america. people were already here. ere already here.

when people said he discovered america, that is incorrect. our topic is discussing politics during thanksgiving. what do you think? caller: that's a political thing. diane, fort lauderdale, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. tank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. i would like to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving and a healthy one. i think politics is a healthy discussion. it feels good to have different voices come together so that we keep our creative minds moving forward in a progressive, productive manner. to hearportant everybody's voice and act on it. remember it ise,

through questions and discussions where we learn and move forward. that is what i believe our country was built on. i appreciate everyone that works together and also being open- minded to different viewpoints so that we can expand in the fashion that leaves a legacy for our children to build on. host: will you be gathering with people today at things giving? caller: yes, i will. host: do they align with you, are there different types of political viewpoints when you gather around the table? there is alignment and disagreement. it's a good time to watch football, i volunteered at the state capitol in tallahassee,

remember a time to that politics are local, state, national, and we remind each other to educate who we are voting for and what they stand for. host: kenneth says on twitter -- only for the suicidal. our family has enough issues. thanksgiving is for celebrating our good fortune, not for fighting. another tweet, saying absolutely not. that is with the next commission point -- an exclamation point. politics and religion are two subjects that always spark confrontation. here's your chance to call in. democrats, (202) 585-3880.

s --republicans, (202) 585-3881. independents, (202) 585-3882. i want to thank god for servicemen at her over the world -- that are over the world for our freedom. goes, thepolitics media used to be down the middle, but they are definitely liberal now.itely thank you. host: as far as discussions about it, how to those go during thanksgiving? tim is gone. let's hear from raleigh, cambridge, massachusetts. theoretically, it is a great idea that people should talk politics all the time. the problem is that the nation is divided.

they cannot have civil discourse. some programs on c- span, national security issues, people discussing this pointed out that our politicians are unable to discuss certain issues, so how to use -- how do you expect civilians to do so? host: have you have holidays ruined because of political discussions? caller: they can just add to the fuel. roy, from is massachusetts. page, on our facebook most of them saying no. 63 are saying thanksgiving is not time to talk politics. one of the ways you can talk to us about if thanksgiving is a time to talk about politics and how that goes for you, @cspanwj is our twitter address, facebook.com/cspan is our

facebook page and journal@c- span.org is our e-mail. taylor, elkton, maryland, democrats line. taylor? caller: good morning. i think it is a great time. one of the things i am most thankful for is growing up with a republican mother and a democrat father. every meal is a political -- meal with is a discussions about politics. we are able to speak with one another. i have a brother who was 11 and he can speak about issues going on in the middle east. he can speak about local issues, national issues. had shielded us from that and the ideas of conversing over food like our

forefathers did, there is no way we would have been able to have those ideas. host: when you have these discussions, are there ground rules in place to keep it from becoming too heated? not really. my mother and i take the most extreme viewpoints. it is just respect is there. you do not take it personally. i have mom and differences on the death penalty or romans writes -- women's -- there are things i am going to learn from her. host: do some of your family members decide to stay out of it altogether? caller: not really. effects every aspect of our life.

with my father does mostly state and local politics. my sister, for her it is international politics that affect her life. host: that is taylor. yesterdayy saw this on c-span, but it is the pardoning of the things giving turkey. line, as the wind blew and the rain fell, president obama stepped outside the white house for five minutes today for a holiday ritual, pardoning a lucky turkey named popcorn. [video clip] >> popcorn is the winner. that even a turkey with a funny name can find a place in politics. for caramel, he is still sticking around and raising money for his next campaign.

on a more serious note, later tonight, we will bring a couple of less fortunate turkeys to organizations to help out our neighbors and to see -- in d.c. who need it most. this is a reminder that this is a season to be thankful for the incredible blessings that we have, but to remember the neediest and generously serve those that are not as fortunate. an american holiday. friends,hanks to our family, citizens to show compassion, neighbors to help strangers they have never met. we give thanks for the blessings .f freedom, opportunity we give thanks for the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform who serve our nation around the world.

for those of you watching, you keep us safe, you keep that -- you make us proud, and you remind us of our own obligation to build on the work of our predecessors. on behalf of the obama family, i want to wish everybody a happy thanksgiving. we will count ourselves lucky that there is more to be thankful than we could ever say and more be hopeful for the we could ever imagine. get away, iurkeys want to grant popcorn a full reprieve -- come on. [indiscernible] [laughter] that is the president from yesterday. our time,mainder of

we are going to take up the topic of thanksgiving and if it is the time to talk politics. robert lambert says that anytime is a good time, especially now. is up next, marietta, georgia, democrats line. this is a good time to talk about politics. what i'm going to do is that all of the people that are coming in from college and all of my friends that is going to be visiting, i'm going to ask them if they have health care. anytime the republicans telling them not to get health care, that sounds crazy. what young people need to do when they ask them that question, asked them when something happens, what are they going to do. what are they supposed to do at that point? i am going to ask them. that is being responsible. to let them know when you do not health -- do not have health

care, what happens is the net cost goes out to everybody. how many people are gathering with you this year? close to over 50 people. friends come in and out. that is going to be my subject. that is what i'm going to ask them. i usually ask coworkers, everybody. those people in and out of your house, are they the same as your different opinions when it comes to politics? caller: some are. my opinion. are of some do not have health insurance and some don't think it is important. some do not even think about it. drillingg to keep them. you have to do this. this is important for them. host: that is cynthia from georgia. she mentioned health care.

several pieces on the status of healthcare.gov. another delay, this one dealing on theall businesses website healthcare.gov. the latest delay coming as the white house was boasting major improvements in the website. they open the door to more complaints about the health care law, could increase richard delay, other provisions. employees -- it says it was a setback from the well- documented problems. they say they have to focus on basic functions of the website so that individuals can shop for insurance before offering online enrollment for small businesses. businesses and employers can apply through brokers. that delay will take about a year. when it comes to the technical insides of healthcare.gov, part of it is going to be turned over to hewlett-packard. -- the center for

medicaid and medicare services are replacing data center services from verizon communication with services from hewlett-packard. mark's data center experienced issues in late october that caused outages across the system. another story that talks about the website" it white house -- talksanonymously about the white house and it quotes a white house official anonymously. allies,use asked including enrollment are good, the service employees international union and land use the site not so they can install a new address times when

demand exceeds the sites capacity. this comes up as the november 30 takes place this saturday. thank you means a time to talk politics. this is sandra. she is on our independent line. caller: hello. of ank it is a little bit disgrace to ask the american people to do with the be, toent's work should do it for them. it is disgraceful to ask the american people to discuss the health care business on their greatest holiday. this is our country. the liberties we have here,

nobody has it anyplace else. it has been taken away from us. you don't think talking politics should happen i think doing? caller: no. not at all. host: what happens when it comes up? how do you handle that? comes up among different members of the family? think it is a time to discuss it or to fight about it. andnly brings that will people have different opinions. it is not a time when people are celebrating a holiday after a wonderful year that they have .ad pilgrims were settlers here. they had a wonderful life they started. for to be spoiled with the politics that we have today, that is what i think. here is mike, new jersey,

republican line. if conversation comes up where i am going to be, i am going to tell them how much the president in line to all of the people, the kids and everybody. to all of the people, the kids and everybody. if you put a price tag on their bandwagon, they would not want. that is why they do not want it now. the president is hurting the country more than he is helping it. premiums are tripling and doubling. what is the reaction from the rest of your family? caller: they are probably on my side. they are being hurt. the people you associate with today will generally agree with you? caller: yes.

host: for those of say they do not, do those discussions become heated, doesn't upset everybody? if you are a democrat and you are an obama lover, you're going to stick by this guy just like the democrats do. now they are running for the hills. they knew what they were doing. the president, i believe knew what he was doing. he is a great liar. host: that is mike from new jersey. says holidayswho are the time to listen and learn from loved ones. karl is from jersey city, new jersey. democrats line. caller: hi. i think it is always good to

talk about politics, no matter a lot ofsituation is. times you can be in a situation where, like a thanksgiving dinner, food brings people together. it'll have to have an open mind. i heard the other caller that was so negative. you cannot be negative. you have to be able to say you have their viewpoint -- you have your viewpoint, i have my viewpoint. you have to respect their viewpoint. a lot of people are kicking obama in the back, but look at the damage that george bush did. i am not trying to politicize the full thing, but it is always good to think about growth, to think about keeping an open mind. host: do come from a family that debates politics? caller: oh yes.

i have republicans and democrats and my family. i am a democrat myself. in my have marxists family. we debates. it is one of those things where you can do that. getting together with some of those today and do you expect politics to be discussed today? expect politics to be discussed today. yes. i do expect that. host: that is carl from jersey city. scott on facebook says no, it is a time to pause and be thankful for the good things and not engage in debate. the exception i would make is to discuss clinical strategies to help the homeless population in all u.s. cities. facebook is a way to give us a comment. do so on twitter as well, send

us an e-mail, or you can go to the phone lines. they will be on the screen as we go throughout the morning. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. independents, (202) 585-3882. ,here is this article yesterday, on how to deal with thanksgiving day family political discussions. 15 tips that are offered. twiceghlights -- do not to persuade your opponent. that is to number one. -- do not try to persuade your opponent. that is number one. if you're having a conversation with someone that disagrees with you, they are practicing for when other people are around or trying to get a better sense of the point of view of the other person. there is nothing wrong with that. it also says that you should flatter your opponent. this is a family environment, when the other person says you

-- says something that you know is wrong, say something like, "oh, uncle keith, you are too smart to believe that." this will annoy the person you are debating. phil, summerville, south carolina, on our independent line. caller: good morning. off on a tangent from what i was going to say because the one thing i do agree with a couple of callers back is the idea that we have the government prompting us about what we should say and how we that onell a program side of the aisle is trying to push. that is outrageous. about as outrageous as the counterpoint from the other side. the factmentioning that the president had gone off and pardoned the turkeys

yesterday, i did not realize joe biden had been charged with anything. host: hadi think your discussions later on today will turn to politics? -- how do you think your discussions later on today will turn to politics? they will show up here and there. i am probably the most political of the bunch. , but it will probably turn to that. are they serious, fun in nature? are more onn-laws the liberal side of things. i lean more conservatively. in the grand scheme of things, i think hangs stay civil around holidays. potential for it. gina, hi.

caller: we should be grateful for what we do have and make that be the first priority of a conversation. on the other hand, i would like to say that it is very difficult taxpayer,ys the always the one working hard, so all other people can get everything for free. it is very hard. so many of the callers who call in are so full into thinking that this health care that they are getting is free. they are so wrong. it is being paid for by so many lower and middle class people who are working hard. they have to limit what they purchase, especially when you

see the people getting .verything for free their cell phones, their big- screen tvs, every luxury that they like to have is their priority before buying their health care themselves. that is the crux of the problem. thank you very much. host: a magazine has a piece saying how not to argue with your crazy relatives at thanksgiving. the rules and conservatives have been arguing for centuries, and neither has commenced the other side to surrender. wouldn't it be more interesting to write something that is real? the downside is, it is not as much fun to try to persuade someone who's a conservative. there will be no killer facts and figures in this list that demolish uncle joe's obamacare tirade and leave a smoking

crater in his wake. a series of e cards, such as let's be thankful our dr.'s waiting room does not look like the macy's thanksgiving day parade, yet. be thankful kathleen sebelius is not coaching our football team. some of the approaches political groups take when it comes to the topic of local conversation at thanksgiving. thanksgiving a time to talk politics? we are getting your thoughts on it. i am a democrat. i have a little problem in politics. it is concerning me producer of -- it is concerning the producer of 12 years a slave.

she recently came out and said he helped develop the nuclear program in iran. out where their loyalty lies. do they have dual citizenship and do they have any loyalty to --. there argue -- host: debbie, independent line. caller: i thought this was about politics. i did not know it was about obama care. -- obamacare. i would talk about jobs. to me the economy when people have not been working in years, it seems that would be the discussion. it is interesting that all of a it is, no matter what,

all based on obamacare. the situation with iran, that is obamacare. it is amazing how everything is obamacare. i would love for these folks that are coming -- calling in about this obamacare, i would love to know if they applied. a lot of the things that i am hearing, those are talking point howe it it is interesting republicans are trashing it and the democrats are hailing it. these are talking points. i bet 90% of these folks have not applied. -- even a report that c-span did said that 80% of the people will not be affected by .his insurance are upt: will these topics come during the course of your dinner? caller: i will make sure they

come up. we need to be talking about health care, people working, economics, education, on-the-job training. we are going to talk about all of that. about howdy to talk happy the pilgrims were, it is amazing to me. thank you very much. host: no discussion of politics from twitter. thanks giving is a time to enjoy family and friends, even if they are a republican. for the remaining time, you can express on twitter, facebook, e- mail, and the phone calls as well. concerns about china being the the eastpecially about china sea. joe biden heads to asia to talk about these topics. one of these will be the latest between the u.s. and china over claiming airspace.

u.s. concerns to china. administration official said mr. biden will have an opportunity to make clear to the chinese leadership that we have and that we have questions. the underlying point here is that the strains caused by a series of actions by china in its relations with its asian neighbors is not a good thing. democrats line. caller: i would like to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. around the dinner table today, we will be discussing kentucky basketball, probably about politics and everything. i am a democrat, conservative. i do not agree with obama and

his policies. need, we need to get the lord back into our country. that is what we need in america today. we need to come back to the lord. host: you heard from the president earlier today. the house speaker putting a video on his website. it is entitled "thanksgiving in ohio their here -- thanks giving in ohio." [video clip] >> these are some of the things that am thankful for. i will be eating up our turkey from a small -- picking up our turkey from a small farm. i will be sharing the turkey at home with my wife and our girls. we will bow our heads for those

who risk their lives so that we may be safe. and those who just need an extra blessing. forll be giving thanks being your representative in the house. it is the honor of a lifetime. from my family to yours, happy thanks giving. ksgiving. host: abilene, texas. caller: good morning. i am a disabled veteran. i have my health care. i am concerned about others. i am for obama care. comprehensive immigration. care -- host: how does

the conversation voyeur house? itler: we will be discussing . we will be discussing the positives and the negatives. are they afraid of? becoming the minority? faith and fear do not live in the same house. they call themselves christians. what did jesus talk about? he had compassion. thank you. everyone have a happy thanksgiving. lynn, independent line. hi. i am listening and i am astonished. the topic is about politics and whether we should discuss it at our dinner table.

i am listening and these people are coming -- i am not even following the discussion. at our dinner table, we have always stopped -- i am in my -- we stopped, we bow our heads, and we say thank you. each person says what we are thankful for. the entire dinner table, 30 some odd people and you have democrats, independents, black, white, purple, pink, and everyone is different. this is not a day for differences. this is for a day where we are similar. ago, whenf years retailers decided they're going to open earlier and earlier, they're going to open at night, it is terrible. every retailer, every restaurant, every person out there cannot close their door and say hey, give someone off to be with their family. as you say that, as you

gather around today, what happens when these topics come up? do you allow it? is it a free-flowing conversation? been know.is always this is one day, no politics. football, family. just be happy, be grateful. we take during the day the kids and we go help out in some fashion to help others. is it idealistic? no. we have been doing it for years. it works. my kids do help others. that is what they are used to. we have been very blessed. we work very hard. we are upper-middle-class, and that is ok. have two nickels together -- to rub together when i started. that was ok, too. host: independent line.

caller: hello. happy thanksgiving. i am very political, but i do not think thanksgiving is a good place to discuss politics. we should be thankful for what we haven't mar you can pick up the debates about what you want is a. have thankful for what we and tomorrow you can pick up the debates about what you want to say. host: what about the rest of your family? democrat, itried a is better to avoid it. my in-laws are mixed. one is democrat, one is republican. instead of picking a fight, let's enjoy the grandchildren, my two daughters, enjoy the day. this is a little tongue-

in-cheek, if you do talk politics today, be aware that the nsa is listening and requiring -- recording everything. jason is on our republican line from texas. caller: i want to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. it is not a day to talk about politics. we need to set our differences aside and be thankful for what we have. we live in a good country and we are blessed. people thate around , why not engage in politics? especially the -- between family and friends? caller: there are more things you can do with the day and then argue. it is better to have a positive attitude and try to be thankful today. host: is your family political by nature?

caller: they are. i have to take a narrow opinion. sometimes they bring them up, sometimes they do not. of the familye that is democratic and one side that is republican. everybody is never happy. i try to keep the peace. host: do they become heated? caller: they can get that way, sometimes. that's all i can say. host: that is jason from texas. up next from florida, on our democrats line. a good day toy is talk politics. politics is a 24-hour subject.

it never stops. can anyone that is poor be a republican? republicans are going down and going down fast. thank you. that is all i have to say. host: one more call. mike, akron, ohio, mike is on our independent line. our family likes politics, but we also like sports. we are split between democrats and republicans. we are also split between being --.ns fans teamcans are a second quarterback that they are not the starter. the group to win

games. you cannot have a second team quarterback that is more intent on starting a game and winning the game. republicans come off as a second team quarter. -- thanksgiving -- second team quarterback. we are lions and browns fans. host: our discussions more heated about the football or the politics side of it? caller: it is about equal. we are happy when detroit loses. we can all celebrate the game. we can watch the second game for the heck of it. we combine the two together and seemed to have a good time. host: do any of these discussions ruin or upset the holiday to a great degree? caller: most of us have a good sense of humor. who areother people

good peacemakers. it is so rare, we laugh a lot -- most of it is done in good humor and good laughter. mike from akron, ohio. he is the final call we will take on the topic. our table does not have food, but it will have discussions about the economy. that is next. two guests joining us. we are going to be joined by .eter morici and joseph minarik that will take place later on. we will hear from someone on the phone line from afghanistan, major james mcconville. learn what it means for the military. we will continue right after this. ♪

, the 1960'swere were different. there were a lot of things happening involving race, the breakdown, the structure of out of, i was suddenly the seminary and in new england. there were no rules. things were falling apart. without structure, it is difficult to navigate. i was fortunate to be at holy cross. had afortunate to have m of the way i was

raised. i was fortunate to have been in predominantly white schools. i was the only black kid in my high school and savannah. the transition to a school with very few blacks in a difficult set of circumstances, i had a jumpstart. i was ahead of the game. i had something. it allowed me to continue to do well, even though it was difficult. twoater today, here from supreme court justices. clarence thomasson 9:00 p.m., followed by elena kagan at 9:45 p.m. on c-span3, the 150th

anniversary of the gettysburg address. helps -- at 4:00 and 10:00 p.m. >> young women are taught that they live in a society where girls are short changed in school, robbed of address lessons -- robbed of adolescence. they are cheated out of 25% of their salary. are all sorts of forces that hold them down and keep them back and out of the echelons of power. this picture does not fit reality. it is distorted. the false claims that have been supporting it have been repeated so many times that it has taken on an or of truth. labeled chrise sommers as feminist.

that is live at noon eastern. join mark levan, january 5. washington journal continues. next hour, the outlook of the economy. we are joined by peter marie c -- peter morici and joseph minarik. he serves as their vice president and director of research. to both of you john, welcome. to both of you gentlemen, welcome. what is the current state of the economy and if you had to give a forecast where it is going, where would you go? low-grade recovery, not

enough growth to make an impression on the reduction in employment that we had in the downturn, there's nothing on the horizon to suggest a big change in the way the economy is behaving. i do not think washington is helping. inneed to do something here town. will be the top of the list to help things along? guest: a push in the short run and something to give insurance that the health care will be dealt with in the long run. had a runald reagan that wasn't even as president obama's. his unemployment rate was close to president obama's.

as a consequence, 2.3% is barely more than what productivity , so the quantity and quality of jobs are so poor that if we factor out importantly, more the number of people working has declined. if the percentage was the same today, the unemployment rate would be about 9.6%. of hisans about 90% reduction in employment has been accomplished by discovering it mirrors what is going on in europe in the decades preceding the meltdown in italy, greece, so on. we are on a track to be more

like italy then greece. greece. we need to fix the budget process. we have a tax rate that is the highest ever over the next two decades. we can getfind ways private sector stimulus. there are good ways to do this. in ministrations knows about them. it has spoken about them. the president campaigned on them in 2008. they have not been executed. we need to 60 exchange-rate problem with china and germany and japan. you have 40% of the global economy, it is the whole ball of rack -- wax. host: anything tourists on?

especially the unemployment numbers. i don't see it the way peter does. i am are presenting myself in a nonpartisan organization. at the time when president obama took office, the decline in gdp previouspeak of the period of expansion was as bad as the 1981 economic downturn. in employment in percentage terms was already worse than the worst of the 1981 economic downturn. the economy was still falling like a rock. the economy009, lost jobs. current economic downturn is the worst that we have seen

since the great depression. it was falling early on in the obama administration before the president could take any responsibility for it. said, you goeen into the economic research that has been done in those kinds of downturns driven by financial and it is clear from that that you are going to have a and it will be harder to turn around when you know the kind of financial meltdown that we had. int was baked in the cake 2007, 2008. host: numbers will be on the screen if you want to join in on the conversation.

it is important to recognize there were differences in timing of the two downturns. without getting into history, may be looking forward to what we can do. that is what concerns us. afteragan recession came a succession of difficult times because of the various oil crises we had. we got to that depth of unemployment on the basis of happened -- of what happened in those two years and previously. we have not had a modern financial collapse until this one. we really haven't. to say that history tells us the modern financial collapse is such and such, we do not have the information. most of the information we have goes back to 1929. everything before that, that you abstracts, it is built up out of fragmented

information. we are in a situation that is difficult. there are a number of things that folks on both sides of the aisle suggests need to be done differently than what we are doing. with regards to the exchange rate, i have support from democratic economists and mainstream economists. with regards to the financial sector, i do not think we can effectively regulate wall street in a manner that dodd frank does. we see that with things like the london whale. how do they gamble with the money up there? every morning, 100 seven regulators get up, have their coffee, go to work at jpmorgan, and the folks at jpmorgan convince those regulators that

nothing can happen in the division where the london whale was cooked up. host: you may have to explain what that is. guest: that was the losses they had in london that caused them to be heavily fined recently. say, it is not a partisan thing. it was largely problems within hhs. they have had a long string of computer failures. there's a lot going on here that should be done differently. i think we could do things to get the economy rolling and growing, but i think we're going to have to regulate the financial sector differently. up a bigavor busting banks, going back to glass- steagall. also, busting up the big banks. reason a large u.s.

bank should have 10% of deposits. first call.get our here is jan, springfield, massachusetts. you are on with our guests. caller: good morning. i would like to say that we are all very scared and part of the reason we are scared is that all of our jobs are overseas. is, if i order from macy's, i speak to a girl from the philippines. if i order shoes, i speak to a girl in the philippines. of ourle overlook economics -- you have to realize that i watch the cbs news, which i thought was neat because it does not give anything that is on the span. it has a lot of medical ads. we have all of this big money, what are they producing?

tobacco, alcohol, serial with sugar. sugar.eal with all of our commercials are for medical people. host: she mentioned the anxiety about jobs. this from laura on twitter. the newt should not be normal. we are in a deep hope. climbing out will take time. we should not be satisfied with that. jan mentioned call centers in the philippines. if you think about it, we are not in a world where call center jobs should be where people are aspiring to. we should have a workforce that

can do jobs at a higher level and better pay. call center jobs can be replaced by pushing buttons on a phone or going on the internet. those people can be circumvented entirely. we need a better trained workforce. that is where the goal ought to be. host: does the government have a role in that? guest: anywhere from the state and local level where we establish our own entry schools. we should be doing a better job of increasing access to preschool education for even younger children. you have essentially found out where they are going when they are in the third grade. state governments are heavily involved in higher education,

secondary education. we need a system that is affordable and can provide good quality education. the government has to provide information and some funding. host: you mentioned the reagan era. this from a viewer. guest: in the short term, that can be helpful. we had $1 trillion deficits. that was not enough. those kinds of things work when the structure of the economy is fundamentally sound. the product of republican and democratic administrations neglect. one is the exchange rate.

i am not bothered by call center jobs but by backroom services of lawyers being outsourced. if we cannot provide jobs for lawyers, that tells me there is something wrong. that is technical. there is other things my colleague alluded to that are dysfunctional. american higher education. university of maryland, the university of minnesota need to be cleaned up. they are about as dysfunctional as hhs when it comes to bureaucracy. i have colleagues who come to meetings. they remind me of the ancient greeks. they spent much other times tied up in lawsuits, much as we do. the committee heard the arguments.

all of the freemen of athens would listen to the evidence. they never got much done. think of the bureaucratic costs and think about our health care system. if we look at health care education, they do not manage to get a darn thing done. california, their website is working hunky-dory. if you want to find incompetence, gaze out the window behind you. why is washington so inept? why is it so high cost? rock things are a terrible on the back of the u.s. economy. they just put fiat out on the street successfully. host: let's go to bob in new

york on our republican line. caller: good morning. i believe the real unemployment 14% or double, maybe 21%. it is nice to philosophize about all of the reasons about why we are where we are. people need jobs now, today. your guests are busy talking about highfalutin notions of why we are where we are. there used to be the term of shovel ready jobs. i do not know why we are not implementing work programs. my last thought is that if you excluded from insurance coverage on workers compensation and this is liability policies any incidents that are caused by

undocumented workers, i believe you would positively affect the unemployment rate by 5% to 10%. employers would be petrified they would not have coverage in the event of incidents and accidents caused by undocumented workers. it would put all the rest of us back to work. opinion.have another host: respond as you wish. guest: the unemployment situation is worse than the unstated unemployment rate would suggest. it involves people who are working part-time and wish they were working full-time but cannot find appropriate work. the economy is weak for that reason.

how do you get those people back to work? the problem with shovel ready jobs is that they do not always turn out to be shovel ready. it would be great if we could move infrastructure investment in a hurry. there are a lot of infrastructure problems in the united states. that is something that has to be planned and engineered over the long term. what we can do quickly is we can provide temporary tax cuts. i would have included a larger temporary tax cut program. we can provide more assistance to government who are laying off police, firemen, teachers. we have always said the government closest to the people does the best job of reflecting what people want.

that is one area where in a short period of time we could increase employment and create spending that is going to help get the economy going. guest: let me talk about what we can do in the private sector. we all would like to pay less taxes. if we were to open up drilling off the atlantic and pacific coasts, we could eliminate our oil deficit, along with some conservation measures with regard to automobiles. people would still be in substantial vehicles. import 6m-line is we million barrels a day. eliminate the deficit

on oil. that would mean an additional $200 billion would be spent developing the oil inside the united states and selling it and so forth. $100,000 is about a job in the united states. side,put a tax from our fixing the exchange rate problem with china. krugman has suggested a direct tariff. we could argue about that. economist, you probably had in very times. we'll have, center, solutions. mr. obama's approach to china is not to deal with the problem. that is 5 million.

to compensate for the goods we would not be bringing in, the usual multiplier effects million to 5her 3 million jobs. that would do a lot to deal with the numbers we have been talking about. their our solutions. if we restructured on wall street -- banks are laying people off because they cannot compete with big banks. i did a show. i went to the bailey's savings and loan and i met with the president. he is not an earthy character. he pulled out a telephone book from me. he said this is the new regulations on making a loan.

our loans get paid. the people in washington wrote this telephone book for may. i am paraphrasing here. we are going to do home loans because it is too much of a headache. all of the money goes to wall street. one thing about the recent settlement is they did not get the usual exemption for criminal prosecution. the handcuffs are coming. ben bernanke is still sending them lots of cash through his quantitative easing, which they are using to cook up new problems. host: we will talk about that as well. quick response. guest: we need to decide whether a problem is public or private.

on the one hand, you can be told you have problems with the federal government interfering. on the other hand you hear folks on the private side are making bad loans and sometimes making foolish and questionable investments. some point that at we are going to have to find a way to regulate the financial sector more effectively. the problems on both sides. host: we are having a discussion on the economy with two guest. you just heard from joseph minarik with the committee for economic development. 1942. founded in they were concerned about after the war and convinced the united states would win. how would we keep the economy growing and not revert into the

great depression. , the firsty career 20 years weren't nonprofit work in washington -- were in nonprofit work in washington. they are a great organization. is your turn to say something very nice about the esteemed university of maryland. htest: i will say -- i taug for two years on a part-time basis. it is a wonderful institution. i enjoyed speaking to the students. they ranked me in their answers to their questionnaires as 99th percentile in terms of how much they learned in the class. guest: you are supposed to plug me, not yourself.

host: the other guest is peter morici from the university of maryland who serves as an economics professor. caller: good morning. with peter on a lot of things and the emotion and frustration that is with that. the libor scandal emanated from london. it is in the news and it goes away. these are criminal organizations. they have been empowered along with the federal reserve, which is a private bank. these guys are patting each other on the backs. you have citizens, most of us are baffled by what is going on. i have dug into this. people shouldmany

be going to jails. so, there is a massive disconnect between the people out here and what is happening between government and wall street. i know a measure of a good society is how that society takes care of its less fortunate people. if we take a look at what is going on in our country, i think we can see how our government is going. we have this obamacare rollout, which was a massive failure. this was the health care for the entire country. did we hear about the huge failure starting up homeland security? or her about the huge failure nsa had gathering everybody's data? guest: there was one running on a liberal track -- they are

pretty equal in terms of growth and bureaucratic lenders. -- bureaucratic blunders. america's most fundamental problem has been two losers in a row. mr. bush came unprepared to be president. othervernor of texas, than executing people, doesn't have a lot of power. did not have much of a record in the senate or the illinois senate. that is very problematic. what is sad is that in every other country, everybody except covered byalthy are the national health care system.

this notion that we have to go to a national health service -- germany has one of the most successful health systems in the world and does it at about 1/3 less money than we do. they basically have obamacare. any can't germans -- why c germans get it up and running? we have to ask ourselves that question. we just compete better, such as in the technology sector and aerospace. we say we have the best health care sector in the world. the german spend 12% of their national product. we spend 18% and it is rising. they cover everybody. there is no issue of whether

immigrants should get covered. everybody gets covered. part of the problem is they all began this before health care became so complex. you cannot do this with a big bang, whether you are general motors and make perfect cars with all this automation and it was a complete flop, or obamacare. they wrote a law, couple of telephone books, that was supposed to organize and economy the size of france. a compost that within about 12 months. that is absurd hubris. that is part of the problem. they cannot do this all at once. they cannot do it in a way that

is acceptable to the people unless they ask basic questions and getting results with regard to those questions. why are drugs so much more expensive in the united states then germany? you get an answer that makes most republicans want to leave the room. they regulate the price of drugs according to their efficacy. drug companies spend more time trying to get you to buy pills on tv than developing them. guest: the essence of what we need is competition. have a feet part, we for service system where individuals wind up going to uncoordinated care. you go to one dr. for your basic

care and another physician for your specialized care. hospital to whom your specialist refers you to. they are effective systems of health care in the united states that are much more efficient at delivering care and limiting cost. we all know the names mayo, kaiser. what we need is a system of enrolling people in insurance and having people pay for insurance that gives them a reason to choose those efficient systems. we do not have that system right now. i do not believe that apart from the health care exchanges when they begin to work effectively and they are not well designed in the affordable care act system. we are still not moving towards those kinds of competitive cost responsible systems. host: built from connecticut,

hello -- bill. caller: good morning. you touched on the inherited economies of reagan and obama. they both stimulated with borrowed money. higher.taxes were much he had tax cuts as a tool. interest rates were high. obama's interest rates were about zero. he had little ammunition to fight this bad economy. host: mr. minarik. guest: i would add one point to bill's list of issues. the administration inherited a higher level of debt. the debt in the 1980's was about grossto 25% of our

domestic product. we had a lot of room to stimulate. the standard for the european monetary union is 60% of gdp all public debt. you could stimulate the economy and help to get economic activity moving. beginning of this administration, the debt -- we exceeded 60% of gdp in 2010. the debt was well over 40% of gdp and rising rapidly. the size of the debt constraints. the way you can get into trouble is a catch 22 situation. the economy is so weak that you need to stimulate demand from

government, which means higher government spending will reduce taxes. you cannot increase spending because you already are caring and excessive level of debt. that is where you are in countries like greece and italy, which reduces their flexibility to use policy. we are getting close to that catch-22 situation. debt is a problem now. we have $5 trillion more of it. at the time he took office, bush was fighting to put in place some of the mechanisms at his disposal. if you compare government yearing, bush's last good we had a deficit of $161 me, $161-- excuse

billion. ofhad four or five years $1 trillion. way because on that of the size of the deficit. we did not use that period of grace to implement some of the changes with respect to energy and oil. a lot of the spending was hamstrung. is much like what happened with the health care exchanges. a political objective while putting up a basic market. he decided he wanted to promote green buildings. if you're in the early stages and all of the sudden there is a program for green buildings, you have an incentive to stop that

building and start redesigning a new building. the money you get reduces employment. they employ architects and guys like me to figure out the cost benefits. i've proposed when i testified about the initial bailout money, i would like you to go back and reflect on what a bureaucratic nightmare it was. it was so difficult to get the cash. there is a policy he put in place that i proposed. it did not work out larger because it was so difficult to use. it was so poorly structured. and lot of the stimulus fail in that kind of category. i would have abdicated pushing out the money. every mayorrs to

and governor and say spend it to fix or build something. this would have been -- t here would've been problems with people paying off their friends. the government did not do a good job of that. host: we are talking about the economy. nelson from massachusetts on our republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to touch on mr. morici's points that he has made. starting with the financial housing market and wall street. reality is reality. wall street will do what it wants to. government is manipulating through qe3. if americans wanted to take turn fridayy should

may and freddie mac into bonded banks. you can read about this. i did have some good news. jobs are going to be coming back to this country. whereare certain segments they have become to become prosperous. in regards to energy, biotech, 3-d printing. technology is starting. the truth is it is not going to create enough jobs for all the people still unemployed. host: i will let you both respond. guest: i am in favor of joe's solution for wall street. i want more competition.

regulation is like medicine. only one drug is going to work for you. right now we are prescribing the wrong drug on wall street. i would break up the banks. split off the gambling in the casinos. we have to have las vegas on wall street. it is necessary to run capital markets. we can split them up. they do not have to be so big. competition would impose more restraint on the likes of these cowboys. back,egard to jobs coming these new industry's will create some jobs but not the numbers we need. 3-d printing is a big breakthrough. the americans get a premium on the patton.

i will bet -- someplace in china and a lot of the 3-d printing ends up getting done over there anyway. it is a difficult corner. a basic problem we have is the new economy creates not a lot of jobs that create value. it is not $200,000 a job. producingsities are too many poets and not enough scientists. cliché to talk about the art history major. that thereduates isn't much of a future for. our engineering schools are loaded with foreign students. when was the last time you saw a

politician go to a high school and make a speech. they encourage them to become social workers if they are democrats. republicans, a job in public service. i wish mr. obama would take a walk through a factory and talk to and engineer like an ordinary person. there is a lot of pressure in stem education -- a lot of interest in stem education. people are people. they go in particular direction. i children are artists. guest: my son is studying law. guest: it is always going to be tough. i agree with respect to wall street.

competition is the answer. an important part is you bear consequences from your losses when you do something stupid. and we need to prevent the development of a too big to fail institution or you have to catch that domino or it is going to knock over the rest. a difficult thing to do. i want to turn back one question. peter mentioned not taking advantage of a period of grace with respect to the federal budget. we were paying off debt at the end of the clinton administration. if we had stayed with the general budgetary policies that we had, we could have gone down from the public debt of 33% of the gdp as opposed to 50 and we

could have run that down even further. that to me was one of the most enormous missed opportunities in the history of the united states. the, seven years until first wave of the baby boom turned 62 and collects social security. recreationerfect about the seven lean years and the seven fat years. you were supposed to start up your grain and we blew it. guest: i agree with you. mr. bush came into office under a cloud because of florida. he won florida. according to "the new york times." and looked at the chads

said they were not hanging, bush did win. he felt he wasn't in a strong position. it all began with the farm bill. the farm bill was much larger. he burned up the opportunity to run down the debt at a time when the economy would have grown about the same if he would have left it alone. he should have used that opportunity to deal with republicans. and then restructure the tax system, getting rid of the disincentives and still collecting the same amount might've been more productive than just tax cuts. you could've given people tax cuts that way. people not paying taxes like mr. romney and he has a lot in

common with jamie dimon. that would have done a lot more good. we spent $5 trillion in deficits. we did not restructure things like health care properly. goals."re my that is a great opportunity for k street to wrirtte a law. they excluded the republicans. that period of grace was squandered. a used to be who was the most incompetent president we had -- orangey hard and or... s grant -- warren g harding or... s grant. who did more harm, bu;sh or obama.- bush or

host: let's take a call. caller: i have not had a raise since the free trade pact was passed with nafta. since that day. negotiating over the current trade treaties. we have no say in those. the insanity is just unbelievable. pass that on to the president if you get a chance. twitter.s comes from we are negotiating a trade agreement with europe. the transpacific agreement. to be able toneed

compete with the rest of the world. if we attempt to isolate ourselves from the competition that is out there, that leads to a period of decline. if we goeed to do, back to the 1990's, there were people who were adversely affected by nafta. 1990'so have in the economic growth, job growth. a period of rising wages. the overhanging problem with respect to pay for a long period of times is tha employers have been paying more for health insurance.

that money could have gone into cash wages if we were able to control the rate of growth of health care costs better. people would've gotten pay raises. guest: i will take a professorial prerogative. i didn't know how much of this is history or fable. history know the portuguese sailed for india by going down africa until they got to the horn of africa. when prince harry's sailors got met chinese, they mariners. date waived and went home -- they waved and went home. the chinese mariners -- well,

sail on. you must be on your way to asia. ail on.d sal boats."e no single decision was more important than that decision. the chinese had superior navigation skills. there is no reason why the europeans should have become so dominant as they did. it is always that way. if you close itself off from the world, you fail. these trade agreements -- that is how i got my tenure. they leave a lot out. they leave out things like exchange rates. things like disciplines on domestic subsidies and so forth.

we end up opening our market too much and we have a big trade deficit. the theory of comparative advantage and the gains from trade are premised on balance trade. go pick up any economics textbook, the matter who has written it. that is the neoclassical theory. it provides the foundations of the wto. uithout allen's trade, -- witho balance trade, we do not get the gains. 200 members of congress have petitioned the white house. the get exchange rates into asian-pacific discussions. the white house doesn't seem to be interested in getting that

right. host: mr. morici with committee for economic development. our next call, this is darrell. hello. caller: i would like to talk about the united states being the reserve currency. countries are using their currencies in trade to get away from the dollar as they see the federal reserve keep printing money. to american citizens have to buy gold and silver to protect themselves? no, i would not advise the typical citizen to go out and buy gold and silver as a hedge against the value of the dollar. have, a risk we

run if we continue as a society to borrow excessive amounts, the debt continuing to grow relative to the size of our economy. at some point it may be that other countries will begin to try to move away from the dollar as the medium of the exchange. if the oil producers in the middle east decide to start taking the price of oil to some currency other than the dollar. if the dollar comes to be less commonly held as a store of value, you will have a period when dollars will be on the market and evaluate open potentially fall and you could increasethat reason an

in the price of imports in the united states. a decrease in the price of u.s. goods overseas. the value of american production relative to other production would decline. host: let me squeeze a call. this is robert from atlanta. caller: good morning. peter addressed one of the issues and that was greed. the rich are paying the lowest tax rates they have paid in 80 years. i would like to hear joseph respond to that. -- i andineering' talking to from an iphone that cost me $500. how much extra would i have paid if it was made in america? i have a friend who is a

software engineer. he lost his job. workle doing the fill-in were in pakistan. he had a hard time communicating with them. bring the engineering jobs back. we are abouthone, to find out. apple no longer makes those devices here. i would guess it would cost if you dollars more. with iphones, they get a big premium. with the other phones, the margins are not very wide for theverizon and at&t or for cell phone companies. money.a lot of if we took some of the measures i suggest, we would get them back.

he process of de-dollar izing the world has already begun. it is more an effect than a cause. the central banks have started to diversify away from the dollar. the real problem is there are not the choices. japan is in more trouble -- the yen is in more trouble. term, i think we will live in a world where several currencies are important. term, the dollar will be less prominent. i do not know that that is such a bad thing. some of the irresponsible budget

policies would not be policy and some of the irresponsible banking policies would be possible if we were not the reserve currency. if that went away, we would worry about what people thought about these policies more than we do now and deal with our fundamentals. the europeans do not deal with them effectively. i do not lay awake at night by taking the corn syrup away from the white house and the federal reserve. host: pat in minnesota on the republican line. caller: happy thanksgiving. host: thank you. caller: why is this the worst from recession, depression? why is the unemployment rate so

low? and why is it so bad? host: mr. minarik? guest: then the speak to pat's question. why is this the worst recovery? i go back to the issue of the destruction in the financial system. peter mentioned the history that goes back a long period of time is not all that relevant. i do not think we have seen anything that tells us it becomes easier to recover from a serious financial crisis. what we are talking about is the deterioration of the circulatory system of the economy, something like the aftermath of a serious heart attack. it is hard to restore the flows

of credit so that businesses can work more effectively in order to expand. businesses do not see demand in the consumer sector. nobody has a reason to move forward. why is the unemployment rate as low as it appears to be? 353le who have sent out resumes have come to the conclusion that the 354th will not be the charm, and they have become discouraged workers. they are not measured as being unemployed. this is a serious part of the problem. robert asked about taxes on high income individuals. there are really two problems. one is the average level of taxation. the other is there is a wide

dispersion of taxes on people with high incomes. schmo who pays taxes on all of it is paying a much higher share of his income. . peter mention the last failed candidate who pays a smaller percentage even though his income is larger. i believe a serious contributor to that problem of the dispersion of income comes right down to the preference that we provide in the income tax for long-term capital gains. host: a quick final word. guest: you are right. mr. obama wants to get rid of that and it permits wealthy people who make some of their benefit toetting a

pay much lower taxes. those guys should be paying more. host: peter morici has been joining us from the university of maryland. also joining us from the committee for economic development. thank you and happy thanksgiving. guest: happy thanksgiving. our show aboutue forces in afghanistan. we will hear directly from the front lines from major general james mcconville for the latest on afghanistan. we will have that discussion and we will be right back.

["god bless america" one meal people -- one million people lined up and millions more watched the live television coverage. nbc'son c-span, watch

coverage of robert f kennedy's funeral. >> this is the pat nixon rose garden. mrs. nixon was ancient mental in designing -- was instrumental in designing it. she left gardening. she opened up the white house for garden tours in the spring. this is the pat nixon rose, which was developed in 1972 by a french designer. is the only rose that will continually grow at the white house. this is the final resting place of president and mrs. nixon, only steps away from their farmhouse. there is a great story nine the epitaph on mrs. vixen's mrl site, which she chose yourself

nixon's memorial site. peopleod will this do if do not understand what you're saying? is the one people cannot speak your language, they can tell when you have loved in your heart. >> watch our program on pat eastern.c-span at 7:00 our series continues on monday with betty ford. "washington journal" continues. host: our next guest joins us from afghanistan. it is major general james mcconville. he joined us for a discussion and he will take your calls and questions shortly. thank you for joining us and happy thanksgiving. guest: good evening and happy

thanksgiving from barbara him airfield.-- bagram host: what is the mission of u.s. forces in afghanistan? guest: the current mission in afghanistan is security force assistance. assistingising and the afghan security forces so they can secure their country. host: tell us how that is going. how much money and effort have we poured into training? guest: the me tell you about regional command east. that is the area i am responsible for. that is the 14 provinces that basically encircle kabul. a very important location. there are two important

highways. highways seven runs from kabul.n and runs into you also have highway one that connects kabul and kandahar. we have two national army corps. we have national police and local police. border police and the director of security. those are the five pillars of forces that provide security. there were 85,000 of them. we work closely with them. we advise and assist them so they can do their jobs. over the last year, they have slowly taking a much more of a lead for security. a good indication is a major kent that happened in

abul. leadersught 2500 key and tribal leaders into kabul to determine the future of coalition forces in afghanistan. that conference was secured by the afghan security forces. this was a major accomplishment. they were securing a conference that -- host: there are discussions on whether there'll be a finalization of this agreement. if it is in limbo, what does it mean for military forces? guest: that is a good lead into where i said in the chain of command. and the tactical commander what that means is i am responsible for the war fighting

function that happens within afghanistan. above me is the general who was the commander and the operational commander. above him is the commander and he is the one along with ambassador cunningham and the senior leaders that are working on the exact details of how that will be implemented as we go forward. host: if an agreement is not sign, how do you prepare for exit? guest: one thing that i do is providing the senior leaders options. this is happening as we speak. we have been here since march. we had 58 bases when we started. we had six brigades worth of forces and equipment that were

here in afghanistan. the the summer, because afghan security forces have become stronger, we were able to bring our forces down. now we are at the end of the fighting season. brigades.n to two the we have closed these bases and we have sent a majority of equipment back. to this gives the commanders options. we will continue to bring the force down. -- whenows us to decisions are made, we will be able to answer that. host: the lines will be divided on the screen.

202-585-3880 for democrats. 202-585-3881 for republicans. independents.or a special line for afghan veterans, 202-585-3883. our guest is major general james mcconville from afghanistan. he serves as the commander general. our first call is for john. we want have a chance for a follow-up because of the delay. john from chicago is first. caller: i would like to thank you from all the boys in chicago. thedom has a meaning protected will never know. on what the opinion active military is doing as far as ptds? thank you and thank you for your service.

guest: thank you, sir. congratulations to your blackhawks. we are taking posttraumatic stress seriously. i can talk about it at fort campbell. we have a center that is designed to provide treatment to our soldiers that have mild brain injuries as well as posttraumatic stress. one thing leaders do is they get their organizations ready for change. then you manage that transition. things like post traumatic our challenges that we need to recognize and to get treatment for. if you have an illness -- i talk

to my soldiers and the get wounded. they don't have a problem going to medical a mental injury is the same type thing. that is what we are doing. we have behavioral health embedded in our brigade combat teams, we have a graduate-level programs at a hospital -- out of hospitals. we are continuing to develop those capabilities that go forward. we want to live up to a model that we do not leave anyone behind. host: michael, democrats line, good morning. caller: i have a question for soldiers obeyuld orders from a government that will not give a full story on 9/11 will not acknowledge the that explosives

brought down the twin towers in 9/11. guest: there are people in the united states that may have a different version of what happened during 9/11, i have the opportunity to be watching the television sets when those planes went into those buildings. i had the opportunity to watch the television sets when that plane went into the pentagon and attacked some of my friends, along with the plane that went into pennsylvania. , am surprised that you think and you're welcome to your opinion. that is what makes the united states a great country. a qaeda said they did it, we saw they did it, i would not question that they did it. it is our responsibility to hold

them responsibility for that. it is our responsibility to make sure it never happens again. steve, illinois, democrats line. you are on with major general james mcconville. caller: happy thanksgiving. the troopou stand on anddrawal from afghanistan how that conflict is going on right now? a tactical manner, we are bringing our troops down. -- we are doing it in a prudent manner to maintain gains that we have had in the last 12 years. you see a transition. one of the things i do is manage the transition. in atransition is, i was

division for 15 months in afghanistan. during that timeframe, we did most of the fighting. last four to five years, they have made progress. if you look at the operations today, we are back here, for five years later, 95% of the operations are being conducted by the afghan security forces unilaterally. that allows us to bring our forces down there and we are doing that. when we came here, we had about s.x security force that equated to about 18,000 soldiers. they're down to two security foreces. we had 58 combat basis. fewer bases.wn to

we do not want to keep troops here longer than they are required or as we are directed. end of 2014, what does the size and shape of the force look like in afghanistan? yet whatdo not know the size of the force will look like. i am a tactical commander. , with thean leaders advice of senior military leaders, will make a decision. they will establish the objectives, the policy, and then we will execute that policy. what i do is give them options. decisions know when have to be made. we are bringing the force down as planned and we have the capability to expand or contract the force with some of the innovative ways or methods that we are using to advise and assist the afghan security forces.

that gives them room to make decisions as we go forward. a lot of folks want to talk about the decision -- when it needs to be made. i was trying to think how i would describe that. it isst way to describe like going on a trip and buying an airline ticket. if you think about it, you know right away when you're going in for how long, you can buy one of those super saver plane tickets. you get the plane ticket cheap, things are all set. the longer you wait to make a decision, the more expensive that plane ticket becomes. then you make it to a point where if it is too late, you may not be able to get a ticket. i think that is what is going on here. we will let the senior leaders make that decision. when they do, we will be prepared to execute it. do you train your forces to deal with the influence of the taliban,

especially after u.s. forces leave? what we do is we make our troops are highly trained, they are disciplined, and they are fit. once we get them that way, they are able to be discriminately lethal, agile, and adaptive. do of the things we try to is train them -- a lot of folks are comfortable if they know what is going to happen. if you take a different approach and say we do not know what is going to happen, we're going to train you for uncertainty. we are going to make up plans such that they are flexible and adaptive. as we get closer, we can change them if necessary. it is like being an options quarterback. we have a plan right now. i want to come up to the line

and i'm going to look over that and if theine defense has changed, i am going to change the plan. the good thing is, i get extraordinary soldiers here. audible, theye are going to be able to execute that. indiana, gon, ahead. know, whatanted to do you think the afghan people's president.is of the , i had a goodre perception that the people really wanted us there. i felt like we were making a difference. thank you for your

service. you were here the same time i was. grade --in a great brigade with a proud history. thank you for your service. you make a great point. we were impressed with the fact that the afghan security force could secure that large menu when the enemies -- large venue when the enemies wanted to disrupt it. it gets to the point you want to make. leaders, elders, tribal leaders came together and they overwhelmingly voted to keep coalition forces in afghanistan. ,f you understand the culture that is a huge deal. they have historically not like foreigners in their country. if you study their history, they

have done a lot to expel them. to fact they would decide invite us to stay is a major accomplishment that goes to the work that has happened over the last 12 years. that is what we have to think about. the fact that they have seen a lot of progress. folks have made a difference. around with a journalist from another senior network and i was within afghan general and the question was asked, have we done anything over the last 12 years. i said, why don't you ask him. the afghan general started pointing out things. all of these roads you see, the schools you see, all of the bridges you see, all of the health clinics you see, they were built by the coalition forces. that is why i support you staying. that is the feedback i get from most of the folks i talk to. host: steve, ohio, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my

call, and thank you for your service. mey observers have said to that unless you deal with the economicent rate or conditions, that many people in afghanistan live with, you will not be able to suppress insurrection. do you feel the united states and nato has done enough to alleviate that? how is the m-16 and m for performing over there? performing over there? guest: there has been tremendous growth over the last 12 years in afghanistan. there needs to be more. when you see all of the building that is being done, these roads are being built, the buildings that are coming on, the health

clinics and schools that are being built, it is creating an economy. as thes opportunity .ecurity increases afghanistan has tremendous .esources once security gets established and the government gets restored more, and they develop those resources, there is opportunity to get economic growth. the other thing that is happening that will contribute to this, when the telephone was here -- rummy taliban was here, taliban wasthe 50% of people going to schools. is the standard weapon

and it is performing fine. i just want to add something to that. i was just going to add something on the m-4. when i tell my soldiers what winning looks like, if we do not have to fire a round and we get to the level of security where we do not have to use those m-r. host: james mcconville is our guest, joining us from afghanistan. he serves as the regional command general. i sense you are from the boston area from your accent, is that correct? guest: that is correct. we have five general officers that are from the boston area. the senior commander is from

quincy, massachusetts. commander is from winchester, massachusetts. the regional command south westford andfrom we have a navy seal over here who was also from the quincy area in massachusetts. one thing for the viewers out there, what is an interesting , the isaf commander and myself all served together in iraq. understand ins 2004, that was the first time the world -- the red sox won the world series. here we come to 2013 and find the red sox not only winning the

world series, but also the first time in boston. things i talked to my troops about is one of the things i have to do is get the organization ready for change. we are changing seasons right now. with that, we're going to go ahead and start focusing on the patriots. we wish them luck also. you mentioned proving the security deal. president karzai has not sign that yet. one of the topics he brings up is health injuries. why is he concerned about that and what is the policy about when american forces enter afghan houses? guest: he is concerned about -- a lot of times we will have the enemies, they will go into the local populace's houses.

you had inlike if your neighborhood a bunch of terrorists move into your neighborhood or into your house or your compound. we have security forces. weaponst want to use a system on that house because what they tend to do is go into a compound of a house that has women and children in that house. to arrest or apprehend those insurgents or , our forces -- my forces do not do this, but the afghan security forces partnered with our forces in some cases -- they will go into those houses to try to arrest or apprehend those terrorists or insurgents.

resident karzai's concern is that if we're going to do that, the ramifications of that -- he has asked us not to do those types of things. forward, we see ourselves in a position where we do not have to do those type things. if you look at -- most people are familiar with the bin laden raid. our forces had to go into that compound to arrest bin laden. as we take a look at that, that -- as our forces reduce, the afghan forces will be responsible for those types of operations. sayreville, -- fayetteville. go ahead. i just got back in 2012. what i would like to do is ask

you about the role of contractors as the troops drawdown. saw the parts that they play as far as maintenance and whatnot. what role do you see contractors , given in the drawdown the reduction of troops? do you see them increasing or decreasing? thank you. guest: we have contractors who are fighting -- providing vital functions to the war effort. i want to thank you for your service in afghanistan. what i see in the future, as we bring the forces down and we have less forces and less equipment here, i think contractors will follow the same model. we will bring the contractors down as we bring down the military forces. host: appleton, wisconsin, democrats line.

this is rose. caller: good morning. my question is focused on the comment about mental health for our forces. hear people at the high levels of the hierarchy of the military and politically speak about all of the services that are being provided to the vets, but i am here in the midwest, and i am not seeing that outcome. i am wondering what kind of internal mechanism is in place that is taking account of the resources available throughout the united states, guaranteeing these gentlemen and women, when they come back home, are getting .he services at a high level

it is not happening. thank you. i appreciate your concern for our troops. i share your concern. when our forces come back from combat, we have been doing this for 12 years, i've had some of my soldiers who have six combat scores. that used -- combat tours. we have a program that we started here, we are making sure they get the required behavior health screening and then when they come back to fort campbell, they go through a reintegration process. ableg that period, we are to identify those that may need a little help. put behavior health

specialists in our brigade organizations. we did that so they are available. the things we tried to -- i talk about leaders trying to lead change in their organization, that is how we look at this problem. that is how we get after, in some cases, this illness. the same wayeat it that we treat a physical injury. some ways, those are much more difficult. in some ways, they are hidden. that is why we go through the process that we do. there is a lot more that we can do. we are working that very hard. host: there is a story that was in "the dallas morning news" about the equipment being used currently. what happens to the equipment after the troops leave in 2014. the headline says some of that gets turned to scrap. what happens to the larger pieces of equipment when you are

done with it? the equipment that we need for combat, we are sending home. willll take it home, we refurbish it or reset it and we will use it for combat operations. we have some equipment that it may not make sense to bring home. effective,more cost- rather than put it on an itplane, if we do not need for the next fight, it may not make sense to put it on an airplane or a ship and bring it back if it cost you $40,000. we may look at transferring that to our afghan partners or in some cases, if that piece of equipment does not have much future use left, we may go ahead and turn it into scrap. each -- anyany of

of the equipment begin into the afghan's? guest: we want to make sure the equipment they get, they can maintain and sustain. bases, i talk to you about how we have gone from 58 bases to 13 bases. almost all of those bases were withferred to the afghans, the equipment. they can use the equipment for future operations. rudy, bureau beach, florida, republican line. caller: good morning, general. happy thanksgiving. i have an unusual question. it has to do with rank structure. lower in ranks than a major, so why is a lieutenant general higher in rank than a major general?

that is a good question and i do not have a very good answer for you. i have never thought of that. that is just the way the rank structure is set up. for me to give you an answer, it would not be a good one and i would be guessing. we will take a look at that so next time i get asked that question, i will know the answer. massachusetts, republican line. my question for you is how was the morale of the troops doing today? thank you for your service. the seventh infantry is a great organization. over the last two days, we talk about progress. the last time i was here, we had over 128 bases. it would've taken me a month to see all of my troops.

this time, i was able to divide my visits up to two days and i had a chance to go to every base to see our troops. morale is high. to demonstratele role isroops what their here. they understand the advise and assist role. through, those in afghanistan, there is a tough fighting season. as they have been through the fighting season, they are able, they feel good about what the afghans have done. it is a function of their efforts. their morale is very high. they have been through a tough summer and they have seen the work with theeir afghan security forces. calleror the previous

about rank -- the answer is the lieutenant serves as deputy to the general and are involved in most decision. major generals were known as sergeant major. i don't know if that means anything to me or if you want to add anything to that. are a learning organization. i appreciate the insight. i will be ready for that question next time. it is evening over there. what was thanksgiving like for the troops in afghanistan? guest: we have a great meal. in the very special time military. it is a time when our soldiers are away from their families.

in combat have served or have been in afghanistan, you appreciate what you have at home when you go back to the united states. orn you have an opportunity a privilege to serve with the military in place like -- places like afghanistan, you are very thankful. being here, it is about with your brothers and sisters that you are serving in combat with. we have the turkey, all of the meals. the senior officers will serve the soldiers. they will come through and have a chance to have some time off. morning -- or -- and theoon company here was celebrating having aing by challenge. if you have seen afghanistan, there is a mall -- a small mountain there.

they run up the mountain and they come down. they were excited about that physical feat they are doing. other places are doing horseshoes. everyone is having a meal. onre are still soldiers duty, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. host: here is dale, ohio, independent line. wish you aant to good thanksgiving. i have a question about -- you behind ando man left i am proud of the people that have been recognized in afghanistan. being a vietnam veteran, i feel that we have been forgotten about. we have been put on the back burner. the public does not know who we are.

is there any way to help the older vets? guest: let me thank you for your service. i agree with you. our soldiers today are very blessed. we cannot walk into an airport, through an airport, a shopping mall, a restaurant, without people coming up and thanking us for our service. we appreciate that. that means a lot to our soldiers. our soldiers and our -- and their families have been sacrificing for the last 12 years. i was recognizing soldiers that have been away from their families for six thanksgivings. six years over the last 12 years. veterans,our vietnam we have a proud history in vietnam. so proud, we brought the sign over that our division used

during vietnam. out to ourched veterans and we want them to come back every two years we do a ceremony. i would ask any of the american public that is seeing this, when you see a vietnam that -- veteran, take some time to thank them for their service. when i speak, i always take the time to recognize the vietnam veterans. i do not think we can do that enough. host: photos provided this morning of some of the shots that happened today on bases across afghanistan. people being served meals, playing touch football and the like. as you look at those photos, we will take a call from arlington, tennessee. this is chris. independent line. caller: good morning. veteran, was a vietnam

is a vietnam veteran. chaplain.ved as a i do a lot of work with mental health in the state of tennessee. we did a reintegration event for one of our returning military police units. what i noticed in doing group sessions was that the senior non-coms and the officers were guarded around the question of mental health issues. i understand why. they are concerned about their future. is there anything you can offer to the people under your command way of somein the level of privacy or confidentiality so they can be more forthcoming and not be guarded when they are reaching out for health. -- reaching out for help. i understand you have to balance

that with operational security and the suitability of deployment for your officers and senior non-coms. guest: that is a great question. thank you for your service. one of the things i have talked about through this show is how leaders get their organizations ready for change. doing and what many of us do in the army, we are trying to get people to look differently at mental health. people do not commit suicide. they die of suicide. doyou believe that, people not commit heart disease, they die of heart disease. you start to put it in that type of context. i am not a doctor, so i do not want to pretend i am. if you go to a doctor for heart disease and you are 95% clogged up, he may say there is nothing i can do for you. if you go to a doctor early on

in the process, and you have a again, i am not pretending i am a doctor. he may prescribe you what to drink or exercise and you can catch that illness early in the process. that is what we want to do with mental health. what happens is a lot of these mental health problems, if we catch them early, we get into the proper medical facilities, get them the proper medical health, we can solve it. i have seen it done in many cases. the problem is, if we wait till it is too late and it has progressed to a point where we cannot help them, then there's a problem because we are challenged by what we can do with them on active duty. we still have an obligation to take care of them and make sure they have a smooth takeoff from the military. -- atrying to advocate fort campbell, the reason we

have done the things we have , is to preclude these and catch these problems early in the process. carl, staten from island, new york. go ahead. caller: i would like to wish you well. my question is twofold. one pertains to the fact that the opium poppy production has increased dramatically. do you foresee that international businessmen will continue to loot this country of this mineral you mentioned, i think it is lithium. on a lighter note, can you tell me something called the practice of using burned pets -- -- burn pits. has this practice been halted? thank you. guest: thank you for your

service. -- question on the minerals all of the studies that we are seeing is that there is a tremendous amount of minerals available in afghanistan. i talked a little about that before. that thoseocate minerals are developed and mind in a transparent -- and mined in manner.arent it can be reinvested in the economy and that can be a great driver for the future of afghanistan. they are dependent on a lot of international aid to pay for its security apparatus. the afghans can progressed their future. as far as burn pits, that is something we are concerned about.

in some tactical places, we are trying to eliminate those types things. -- those types of things. most of the local people do not have the access to incinerators like we do on big basis and you have to use burn pits. that is a problem that folks are getting after and it is a concern about the effects on our soldiers. you have heard from major general james mcconville. he serves as the commanding general. thank you for your time. happy thanksgiving. guest: happy thanksgiving. thank you. host: for the remainder of our show, we are going to repeat -- the question -- is thanksgiving and appropriate time to talk about politics? we want to get your thoughts on if it is a time for talk of politics, what you talk about,

how those discussions go, what happens if they get out of hand. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. independents, (202) 585-3882. if you want to send us a tweet, you can do so at @cspanwj. you can send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org. we have a poll going on on our facebook page. facebook.com/cspan. you may have missed it, the democratic national committee has set up a committee called yourrepublicanuncle.com . they say ms. -- president obama has increased the deficit. presidents that since

obama took office, this -- the deficit as a percentage of gdp has been cut by more than 50%. it talks about international relations. the dnc is sponsoring that. if you go over to the rnc's twitter page, they give facts as well in relation to thanksgiving. fact number three, you can agree --r thanksgiving dinner another broken obamacare promise looming for small businesses. fact number two you can agree on, a majority of americans believe obama is not trustworthy or honest. fact number one, you can agree 60% of americans believe obama cannot manage effectively. you heard from the dnc side. we are using it as a jump off point on the discussion of

politics. we want to get your thoughts as well. democrats, (202) 585-3880. republicans, (202) 585-3881. ndependents, (202) 585-3882. on the phone,ling you may have heard this story dealing with the united states, china, japan, and especially the territory over there in the ocean. joining us to talk about that is kirk spitzer. he is a correspondent serving on board the uss george washington. for those who have not been following kirk spitzer, this deals with japan, china, and chinese claims over airspace over what is known as the east china sea. can you set up a context of what is going on? clarify, i amto just back from the uss george

washington. i am in okinawa now. announced what they call in air defense identification zone in the east china sea by which they are requiring any aircraft, whether it is a civilian or military, any aircraft that flies in there's going to have to comply with chinese aviation restrictions. they will have to file a flight themselves, stay in radio contact, comply with any other restrictions they might receive. aboutans are not happy this, the japanese are not happy about this. host: talk about the u.s. and japanese response to this claim from china. the response is simple. americans are saying they are not going to pay attention to it. the japanese are saying they are not going to pay attention to it. it is business as usual as far as they are concerned.

chinese do if the americans continue to fly airplanes in their and it -- in there and the japanese continue to fly airplanes in there. they have done nothing so far. host: there's a story that vice president joe biden is going to go to asia next week. this is one of the topics that he is going to take up with the chinese president. guest: the americans and japanese are concerned about -- chinese territorial demands throughout the asian pacific region. there is an argument over a tiny group of islands, uninhabited. the japanese have been directly for more than 100 years. the chinese are, just in the last couple of years, becoming

territorial lanes on these islands. they claim the japanese have stolen these items and they want them back. it has gotten to be a flashpoint between the japanese and chinese. this new air defense identification zone is seen as the next step in these increasing chinese assertiveness in this region. it has gone the americans and japanese and a lot of their allies concerned. we have heard about the obama administration shifting foreign-policy concerns and strategy to the asia-pacific. sea fall section of into those plans? guest: absolutely. this is the center of what the americans are worried about.

as you mentioned, there is this rebalance that is going on. americans are intending to send -- to shift the u.s. naval forces, which are 50/50 between the atlantic and pacific, they are planning to move about 50% of the u.s. naval forces into the asia-pacific region. and have been building up modernizing the u.s. military forces in this region over the last couple of years. military,re powerful newer and more technologically advanced warships. this buildup is going on. it has the chinese concern. host: you said that you were on the george washington. why were you on?

aest: they were finishing up joint exercise between the japanese and american militaries. this is an annual exercise that has been going on since 1980. it gets bigger every year. it was a big exercise this year. about 25 u.s. japanese and warships were operating just southernnear the islands. parts of this exercise were going off within japanese airspace and sea space throughout the japanese --. this is something the chinese were watching and should have been watching. it was a surprise that they announced this air defense smack in then zone middle of this japanese, u.s. exercise. sent to b-52 bombers from guam into this

identification zone. it was very clearly a message to the chinese that the americans are not happy with this and they're not going to pay any attention. host: kirk spitzer, what should we look out for over the next couple of days concerning the situation? the americans and japanese are going to continue sending patrol planes into this area. it is routine. the japanese have sent patrol planes into this region at least two planes per day into this region. americans send their aircraft in there regularly. they're going to continue doing this. the chinese have not challenged the planes and they have not challenge them because they do not present a threat.

we do not know if the chinese will continue to do nothing about this. that is what we should be watching over the next few days. over the next few weeks or months, we should see if they try to establish the same kind of identification zone in the south china sea, which would raise the stakes in this area even further. japan,oining us from kirk spitzer. he is updating us on the japan/china tension. mr. spitzer, thank you. for the remainder of our time, is thanksgiving the time to talk politics? the calls and the lines will be on your screen. paul., arizona, good morning. what do you think is far thanksgiving as a time to talk about political issues? caller: not at all. today is a holy, sacred day. we have every day to talk about politics.

usually that is all we are doing and not getting anywhere. not: are you saying it does happen or that you try hard not to let a happened? caller: try hard as possible to let it not happen. talk about your family, the football teams, the baseball teams. prayers to god and how thankful you are for having your family, your food, your house. thank you for your show. thank you for your time. you go, when politics come up how do those discussions go? family, theythe have their own -- our family is democrat and republican. they refused to bend. one is controlled by fox news and whatever republicans say, they swing with it. i take the commonsense route and i try not to talk to any of them about it. south haven,,

michigan. caller: happy thanksgiving. we should be that thankful for family and for our loved ones and neighbors. i do not think it is a day to be talking about politics. or calling the president all kinds of names. today, doou gather you think politics will come up? caller: we try not to talk about politics and we do not. if we start talking about politics, everybody is going to get real loud. family does not live around me. they live in other states. we do our talking by phone. host: gotcha.

the subject of conversation is and important than the tone commitment to share thoughts and love. definitely happy to get through and talk and communicate. i think c-span is the number one source for news. let's get back to the core subject matter. , even thoughitics this is a day that we are giving thanks, whether we celebrate it or not, i feel like politics are always on the table. trade and commerce is always on the table. all of these systems have functions. these functions have mechanisms. these things are put in place to keep the world moving.

i share the opinion of many people in america. i do not think it is going in a positive direction. strong,to get back to core family values of being positive. i am not a religious person at all. between a difference right and wrong and we need to go in the direction of right. are being with friends or family today, talk about when those conversations when they come up, what are they like? are people generally the same side as you are? caller: i will be spending time with my family today. these discussions do,. what is interesting about -- these discussions do come up.

myt is interesting about family, my father is a community organizer, they never pushed me towards politics. in it myself.rest opinions vary, but fundamentally, we do share the same views. back to the previous caller, some of the discussions do get heated. i have an older sister and she is strongly opinionated and i have picked up some of that from her as we grew up together. it is a little bit of both. some things we agree upon, some things we do not. we like to look at things from a cup half full perspective instead of a cup half empty. host: that was j. here is important canvas -- emporia, kansas. caller: i would like to give my opinion.

to recognize all of the places that we have in our family. everything that has been given to us. to talk politics. it is time to get together and see each other. it is about family. i do not think it is about politics. host: if it does come up, do you walk away from it? do you engage in it? how is your response? caller: we can engage it, but it ofuld be -- there are a lot more things to talk about. we can talk about politics without being the main issue, without being the main concern. days tothere are 355 speak about politics. today is about family, about what we are grateful for.

general, we should give thanks to each other and the lord for the blessings that we receive through the whole year. garrett, panama city, florida. talking about politics is ok. it is just opinion on what is going on around the world. when football games come on, cut it off. host: does that happen? caller: yes. nothing but opinions about things that are going on around this country. it is just opinions. .ou share your opinions for me, when the game comes on, cut it off. the whole day is not going to be about politics. but it is all right to talk about politics. it is just an opinion. host: a news story to show to

you all. has is a report that iran invited you and inspectors to related nuclear- heavywater facility on december 8. iaea was looking into how sunday's agreement between iran and six world powers could curb the country's atomic activity could be it into practice concerning the u.n. agency's role in verifying the deal. georgia, republican line. good morning. caller: my uncle and i started -- we were on facebook and i over 100at that was comments long and it was about politics.

we decided to table it until we had a chance to see each other again. it's not about trying to change anybody's mind. it is about educating each other. we saved it until we can see each other again this thanksgiving. far as your political background, how would you describe them? caller: i am conservative. my uncle is probably a little more liberal-leaning. both of us are pretty open minded it comes to sharing ideas and looking at answers and things that we think should be done. host: how does the rest of the family respond when you get into this discussion? caller: i have a couple of other uncles, we tried -- we just chime in. it never gets loud or crazy. when it is time to eat. when it is time to eat, it is time to eat. it is usually not that big of a

deal. it is usually just exchanging ideas. iowa, democrats line. hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. , whether wetions can talk about politics on thanks giving, i think -- on thanksgiving, i think it can be mixed between prayers, being thankful, being with family. we can make up our mind about political issues and educate ourselves. i wanted to comment on the comment aboutr obama chewing bigger than what he can chew. i think he has got it right in that part. , i want toran

comment on that if possible. host: go ahead. are goingthink iran .o get their nuclear weapons they are going to get it. we are wasting our time to argue this or even negotiate it. intention.d ira we should proceed to make the relationship between them. host: let's hear from jerry, germantown, maryland. good morning. thank you for c-span. i am glad i got through. i wanted to say that -- should

we talk about politics on thanksgiving? yes. we talk about it every day. it is more about the tone and how we talk about it. instead of bullying your opinion, it might be an opportunity to sit down and really listen to what the other person has to say and come to a conclusion or try to understand someone else. we should use thanksgiving as a reach common ground. host: charlie, georgia, independent line. caller: good morning. it is just as good a time to talk about politics as any other. the emphasis should be placed on god's goodness and what we are thankful for. politics isnd age, all that america is talking about now. the primary reason is that we in politicsesmen

anymore. they have to start right away .orking on reelection they do not have time to come to anynd talk about thanksgiving or the purpose of thanksgiving. host: one more call. boynton beach, this is john. caller: how are you doing. ? it is going to come up at the table. i will not discourage it. a lot of my family has gone there notices on the cancellation of their health care. the nation is frustrated. my family voted for obama. it is disappointment across the board. i do not blame him, but i think he thought what he was doing was going to help a lot of people. you have to cope with it. host: that is the last call we

will take on this common. it takes a lot of people to put on the show. if you follow us on twitter, you saw a picture of some of the staff that are working on this thanksgiving day. this is not even the whole staff. this is just a partial showing of the people that make this show run. we want to thank them. you celebrating, happy hanukkah as well. another issue of "washington journal" comes your way tomorrow. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] ♪

>> good morning and happy thanksgiving. thank you for joining us. coming up next, a look at the life of mamie eisenhower. and then a bust is dedicated to winston churchill. then nbc new coverage of the state funeral for resident john f. kennedy. >> the 1960's were different. [laughter] there were a lot of things happening involving race, the breakdown, the structure of society. i was suddenly out of the seminary and in new england. there were no rules. things were falling